Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in a TV address that any foreign buyer of Russian gas must pay for it in rubles starting on April 1 or else "existing contracts will be stopped."
"In order to purchase Russian natural gas, they must open ruble accounts in Russian banks. It is from these accounts that payments will be made for gas delivered starting from tomorrow," Putin said, according to CNBC.
"If such payments are not made, we will consider this a default on the part of buyers, with all the ensuing consequences. Nobody sells us anything for free, and we are not going to do charity either — that is, existing contracts will be stopped."
Despite Putin's demand for gas to be paid in rubles, a number of European countries that depend on Russia for gas have refused to make the payments in rubles, and will follow the existing contracts that allow payments in euros or dollars.
"It is absolutely not easy to change the currency for payments without breaching the contracts," Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said, according to The New York Times.
"What I understood, but I may be wrong, is that the conversion of the payment... is an internal matter of the Russian Federation," Draghi added, according to The Guardian.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany issued a similar message to reporters on Thursday, making it clear that payments will be continued to be made in euros, not rubles.
"We have looked at the contracts on gas and other deliveries and … it is stated that the payment is in euros. Sometimes in dollars but usually in euros. And I told the Russian president that it will stay that way," Scholz said, per CNBC.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said earlier in the week that the country will aim to end all Russian oil imports by the end of the year and called on other nations to follow their lead.
"We are presenting the most radical plan in Europe for departing from Russian oil by the end of this year," Morawiecki said, according to the Associated Press.
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the United States and its Western allies placed sanctions on Russia causing the ruble's value to tank. On March 9 it was valued at 0.0072 dollars. But since Putin's demands for payments to be made in rubles, the value of the Russian currency has increased back up to 0.012 dollars as of April 1.
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